I've posted this opinion before. But, this seems to be a good place to post it again. I love the "busy" drum wraps from the sixties such as Mardi Gras, Capri, and Fiesta. Up close they are beautiful. However, from a distance greater than ten feet, the drums look to be wrapped with an indistinguishable blur of gray or beige. This is also sort of true for some other wraps such as the various Tiger or Agate and various "pearl" wraps. From more than ten feet they tend to look like a solid wrap of the main background color of that wrap.
I've noticed that too. As much as the red and blue onyx pearls are some of my favorites, they do need a lot of light on them to be discernable. It may be one reason that the glass glitters were more popular than some of the other choices.